Money-Talk and Situational Power in the Milgram Obedience Experiments

• In Event: Theory Section Open Call Paper Session

Abstract

Milgram’s “obedience to authority” study is one of the most influential experiments in the history of the social sciences. As he showed, when positioned in a situation of submission to scientific authority, most people obey the experimenter, shocking an innocent man to his possible death. Yet, by transcribing the audio files of Milgram’s experiments, we show that researchers missed a crucial finding: the importance of money-talk in explaining disobedience. Two thirds (66.6%) of “disobedient” subjects in Milgram’s most famous conditions offered to return the payment they received as a way to resist authority. Invoking market-categories fundamentally changed the situation’s definition, constituting an interactional escape hatch. Our findings allow us to reinterpret Milgram’s findings. Moreover, weaving conversation analysis and cultural sociology, we argue that situational variation is importantly rooted in the confluence of widely available cultural resources and the ongoing interactional structuring of the situation itself.

Authors

• Iddo Tavory, New York University

• Jason Turowetz, University of California-Santa Barbara

• Matthew McGovern Hollander, Marion Technical College